Some Ohio Officials Say Too Soon to Measure Impact of Tort Reform Efforts

Article

Some Ohio state officials aren’t quite ready to say that legislative efforts to cap award amounts and other tort reform efforts are having an impact on dropping claims numbers.

The state insurance director said last week that it’s too soon to tell whether restrictions lawmakers put in place five years ago to deal with concerns about medical malpractice claims are having an effect.

Mary Jo Hudson said the volatility of the medical malpractice market, especially soaring insurance premiums, was beginning to level off. But she was hesitant to tie that development to laws passed in 2003 by Republican Gov. Bob Taft and lawmakers after a partisan battle.

“It’s too early to say,” Hudson said. “You can’t discount that it’s a factor, but we really think it’s too soon to tell.”

She was responding to a report released by her agency on Tuesday, Jan. 22 that said the number of medical malpractice claims in Ohio dropped 20 percent from 2005 to 2006.

Hudson, a Democrat, was appointed to head up the Ohio Department of Insurance by Gov. Ted Strickland after he took office last year. Strickland was the first Democrat elected governor in Ohio in 20 years.

Backed by GOP lawmakers, supporters of the 2003 legislation said huge damage awards to malpractice victims were forcing insurance companies to raise their rates.

Opponents, backed by Democrats, said insurance companies increased premiums to cover stock market losses.

The report released Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Insurance says there were 4,006 medical malpractice claims reported for 2006, compared with 5,051 for 2005.

Hudson said it’s possible changes in the law reducing the amount of time in which injured patients can file a lawsuit may be behind the drop.

Other changes in the 2003 law included caps on the amount of money injured patients could receive for pain-and-suffering, and attempts to restrict so-called frivolous lawsuits against doctors.

The report found that the size of claims rose during the same period. In 2006, the average claim in which a payment was made was $288,080, up from $269,374 in 2005.

The report also found that in both years four out of every five claims ended without a payment to the person making the claim.

The new report is the first chance to measure trends over time.

An earlier report, issued before Taft left office, included a measurement of the effect of the 2003 medical malpractice laws.

The new report does not include that measurement. Hudson said there was no particular reason the information was left out. She said the focus now is on comparing data over several years.

Lawmakers trying to address the problem of medical malpractice in Ohio required the Insurance Department to compile data on claims and issue the reports.

The Ohio State Medical Association, a backer of the restrictions on lawsuits, said lawyers are less reluctant to file claims now because of the pain-and-suffering caps.

“Lawyers are not pursuing cases unless they feel like they can cash in big, and certainly with some outer limits on non-economic damages, that incentive has been taken away,” said medical association spokesman Tim Maglione.

A 2005 rule that requires lawyers filing medical malpractice lawsuits to sign a form declaring the lawsuit has merit has also discouraged frivolous claims, he said.

An attorney who works on behalf of injured patients disagreed, saying patients have been scared off from filing lawsuits.

“The insurance industry and the Chamber of Commerce and the Republican administration have spent the last five years in a public relations campaign to convince people that suing a doctor is an anti-social, un-American, destructive thing to do that is driving doctors out of practice,” said Gerry Leeseberg, a Columbus lawyer.